1.Abad, Francisco. \"Sobre el concepto literario de 'Siglo de Oro': Su origen y su crisis.\" Anuario de Estudios Filológicos 9 (1986): 13-22. 2.Ackerlind, Sheila R. Patterns of Conflict: The Individual and Society in Spanish Literature to 1700. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. 3.Actas de Ia Academia de los Nocturnos (40:1). Reviewed: José Ignacio Diez Fernández. Revista de Filología Española 69.34 (1989): 353-55. 4.Actas del Coloquio Cervantino. Würtzburg, 1983. Ed. Theodor Berchem and Hugo Laitenberger. Münster: Aschendorffsche

Bibliography of Publications on the Comedia (1989-1990)

This thesis investigates the performance of dreams and dreaming in a few early modern English and Spanish plays, namely William Shakespeare’s 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream', Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s 'Life Is a Dream' and 'Sometimes Dreams Come True' and Aphra Behn’s 'The Young King'. Chapter 1 introduces the cultural milieus in which my case studies operate and validate my comparative approach by calling attention to the fact that both dramas attend to similar preoccupations regarding traditional rank and gender hierarchies. Furthermore, it provides an account of the dream theories in force at that time and underscores that dreams are seen as either negligible or very significant entities. Chapter 2 elucidates why I have chosen to study the dreams within the selected plays focusing on their phenomenal, generic and ideological attributes. Phenomenological analysis allows me to prove that the dreams I consider are deeply sensory occurrences that look and feel like reality and vividly expose disturbing (male) habits of power attainment and safeguarding. The plays at issue predictably terminate with the celebration of the (socio-political or religious) values of the patriarchy; nonetheless, I argue that the lifelike dreams have throughout cast doubt on the legitimacy of the beliefs that prevail on- and off-stage and, hence, cannot be simply set aside at the end of the performance. Chapter 3 considers 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in order to: 1) show that in these two comedies powerful male figures exploit dreams to shape the visual/ideological perceptions of socially inferior characters; and, 2) verify that the simultaneously illusory and tangible quality of dream (and performance) is not easily dismiss-able as ‘airy nothing’. Chapter 4 and 5 respectively explore 'Life Is a Dream' and 'Sometimes Dreams Come True' and demonstrate that the dreams in question paradoxically endorse and query the philosophical and religious core of these two plays. In fact, life may be a dream, but in it the acquisition of political authority matters very much; Catholic dogma may be true, but it only comes to life via (supposedly insubstantial) dreams. By investigating 'The Young King', the last chapter of this thesis again proves the phenomenal and cultural weight dreams acquire on early modern stages: the dreams within this tragicomedy intensely reveal the artificiality of established gender positions and powerfully portray ‘natural’ male pre-eminence in an equivocal light.

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Performing dreams in England and Spain, 1570-1670

In the Calderonian auto , worship and festival unite in playful allegory to celebrate the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Play manifests itself in the auto on three levels: in the characteristics of theatrical art in general, in the playful variations of the autos on the primary theme of the genre, and in the transgressive, supplementary play of sin within each auto . Sin's exuberant freedom within the autos , and the multi-tiered workings of play throughout the creation and performance of the allegories, argue against over-interpreting the scope of meta-allegory in the autos . I conclude by stressing that the dual nature of allegory should remain foremost in considering the autos . Because play takes such a fundamental role in the autos , the texts must not be shackled to a logocentric vision of meaning and held to strict readings of their allegories. Rather, they should be appreciated as carefully blended mixtures of sacred worship and secular play, where sin plays freely alongside the promise of salvation, and multifarious meaning springs out of ostensibly arid allegory.

Felix Culpa: Allegory and Play in Calderón's Autos

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Barbara E. Kurtz

Papers

Defining Allegory, or Troping Through Carderón's "Autos"